Inside Passage – Petersburg to Friday Harbor

A 14-day/13-night expedition along the length of the Inside Passage. Our route weaves through narrow passages and among myriad islands as we follow the watery back roads between Washington and SE Alaska. We might see bears, sea lions, orcas and whales – maybe even the rare “Spirit Bear”!

“Time did not exist: or if it did it did not matter, and perhaps it was not always sunny. Our world then was both wide and narrow – wide in the immensity of sea and mountain; narrow in that the boat was very small, and we lived and camped, explored and swam in a little realm of our own making.” – M. Wylie Blanchet, The Curve of Time

The Inside Passage – Southbound Petersburg to Friday Harbor

Brown Bears

Bald Eagles

Orcas

Dall’s Porpoise

Glaciers

Rugged, Natural Beauty

The Inside Passage is a 1000-mile saltwater corridor that twists through narrow channels and wanders among countless thousands of islands. A voyager could spend several lifetimes cruising from anchorage to anchorage, and never stay in the same one twice.

The rich (and recent) history of the Inside Passage adds to the indescribable natural beauty. All of the early explorers were here. Russian, Spanish, English and American explorers arrived in waves through the span of three hundred years. Some found what they sought, some answered questions that had yet to be asked, and others failed utterly.

Catalyst and Westward invite you to make your own voyage of discovery along this singular ocean pathway. Our historic vessels, with their original, slow-turning diesel engines, easily invokes those earlier ships. It is easy to imagine that you have booked a passage aboard one of the many small coastal steamers that plied these waters for a 100 years, serving as the cords that tied the scattered settlements of the Northwest coast together as recently as 50 years ago.

We will transit the narrow “back-roads” of the Inside Passage. Tide and weather will set our itinerary, just as it did for those who went before. Traveling only during the daylight, and finding a different protected anchorage each evening, and moving at 7 1/2 knots, we will have time to “read along” with the many narratives from earlier explorers that we have in our ship’s library.

This itinerary is dependent on weather and the tides and may change at the captain’s discretion

Day 1: Like all other trips through these narrow reaches, our schedule is set around the tides. The narrowest passages become choke points for the current’s flow, and can produce currents that are double the speed of either the Catalyst or the Westward. Our goal today is to pass through two of the most picturesque waterways in the world; first is Wrangell Narrows and the second is Zimovia Strait. This 25 mile long passage is a critical route for most vessels moving north and south through SE Alaska. Departing Petersburg and transiting the channel of Wrangell Narrows, we will be winding our way down to Zimovia Strait. This narrow and serpentine channel was the historic site of the original native village that relocated and became Wrangell in the late 1800s.

Days 2 – 12: We will stop in Meyer’s Chuck, a small Alaskan village, for a night before we’ll arrive in Ketchikan for customs and a little shopping and exploring. After getting checked out of America by the gentle folk of US Customs, we leave the float planes and cruise ships of Ketchikan behind. The time of our departure from Ketchikan is never assured but leaving the town behind, we’ll head south down Revillagigedo Channel to Foggy Bay, located along the western edge of Misty Fjords National Monument and Wilderness.

We get underway early to cross Dixon Inlet, passing east of Dundas Island and heading down Chatham Sound to Prince Rupert. We will clear Canadian Customs at Prince Rupert.

We will run south and west to the outside of Porcher Island. We have several prime anchorages to choose from in this area. Two of the more interesting, Kitkatla and Larsen Inlets are landlocked retreats with steep-to, forested shores and have several creeks, vast mudflats and estuary systems. We’ll navigate through Principe and Otter Channels, and travel up Finlayson Channel to an anchorage in Goat Cove. Here we are in the heart of the home range of the Spirit Bear. We down the long fjord-like channels Frazer Reach, Princess Royal Channel and transit Sheep Passage. Along the way, we will stop to visit the abandoned cannery at Butedale. Exploring this network of deep fjords, we pass numerous river estuaries teeming with wildlife.

We then will head down Mathiesen Channel, Reid Passage and Raymond Passage on our way to a tiny nameless cove on the west side of Campbell Island. We will explore the constellation of small islands that are scattered through this area. We will wander through the narrow passages between islands and eventually transit Hakai Pass and find an anchorage for the night.

Leaving our sheltered anchorages, we will head on across Queen Charlotte Strait and south down the wide and sometimes rolly Queen Charlotte Sound until we will finally tuck in to the Broughton Archipelago. Here we will find a snug anchorage among the hundreds of islands that make up what the locals refer to as “the Mainland”. We will continue through the Broughton Group before re-entering the busy maritime crossroads of Blackfish Sound. This is, as one might expect, a likely area in which to view Orcas as well as Dalls and Whitesided Porpoises. We will turn east up Chancellor Channel and head toward the first of three tidal rapids that we need to weather on this route. The first is Greene Point Rapids and then we will finish with the rapids by shooting Dent and the Yaculta Rapids. With that challenge behind us, we will head south through Desolation Sound and anchor along the way. Once across Georgia Strait, we will duck into the Gulf Islands and eventually re-enter US waters at Boundary Pass and into the San Juan Islands.

Day 13: Our last night we will celebrate our voyage with the Captain’s Dinner, followed with a slide show and shared remembrances.

Day 14: We will arrive in Friday Harbor and clear customs arriving around noon.

Crew Members

Name :
Bill Bailey

Position : CAPTAIN / OWNER

Bill has spent most of his life on the water. After growing up as a surfer in Southern California he moved to the Pacific Northwest where he worked as a commercial fisher in Washington and Alaska, used boats to transport materials and crews to construction sites on remote islands, and cruised extensively with his family. He has a soft place in his mind for older wooden boats, and over the years has acquired the skills required to keep them thriving. [More]

Carlos was born and raised in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, where he also went to university. Though he majored in international business, his passion is the sea. [More]

Name :
Caroline Olson

Position : NATURALIST, DECKHAND, KAYAK GUIDE

Caroline was raised in North Dakota, a mere 150 miles from the geographic center of North America. There one cannot be farther from the sea. [More]

Name :
Shane Blair

Position : ENGINEER

Shane grew up on a horse farm in Boulder County, Colorado, with a love for the land and the lifestyle, and developed a passion for early era tractors. [More]

Name :
Randy Good

Position : ENGINEER, SHIP'S CARPENTER

Randy’s fascination with boats began early, while spending time with his dad on the Chesapeake Bay and his gift for innovative construction began with tinkering at his grandfather’s workbench while growing up in Virginia. [More]

Sarah Drummond’s passion for the natural world began at an early age, and she has kept illustrated field journals since she was twelve. Sarah graduated from Maine’s College of the Atlantic, where her studies emphasized general ecology, island ecosystems, and art; and earned her M. A. in environmental studies from Prescott College, Arizona. [More]

Name :
Bernadette Castner

Position : CAPTAIN

Bernadette grew up in the Pacific Northwest and was never too far away from the water. Family summers were spent camping on the coast, or exploring the Puget Sound in the family’s 16ft skiff, fishing and discovering remote islands. [More]

Name :
Michael Neswald

Position : CHEF

Michael began his cooking career at the age of fifteen, busing tables and washing dishes at a historic steakhouse in Canyon Country, California, where he grew up. Since moving to Oregon in 2011, he immediately fell in love with the Pacific Northwest - its wild native ingredients, local farms and beautiful vineyards.

Name :
Paul Brown

Position : CAPTAIN

Paul moved to Seward, Alaska and began working on boats at the impressionable age of nineteen. A flurry of ambition awarded him with his first captain's license two-years later, and he spent the next few years working on the northern Gulf of Alaska. [More]